


The Lives of the Saints

by Anonymous



Series: Within/Without [8]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: 3x03 coda, Family Feels, M/M, conceivably canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Buck was a master of self-deception; he could deny and compartmentalize with the best of them. He knew every trick in the cognitive dissonance handbook—hell, he’d practically authored it, the new revised standard edition for the twenty-first century man. But waking up now in Eddie’s bed, he understood, in his heart of hearts, that this was not… regular.After the tsunami, Buck finds himself invited deeper into the Diaz family. (post 3x03)
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Within/Without [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738876
Comments: 23
Kudos: 344
Collections: Anonymous





	The Lives of the Saints

He woke up in a strange bed, tangled in strange sheets, and he couldn’t remember where he was. There were two other people in the bed with him. One was very small and clinging to his arm like a barnacle. He had his arm around this small person, and another hand, large and calloused, loosely encircled his wrist. His legs were entwined with another pair of legs; his bad leg had begun to ache under the weight. Carefully, he withdrew it, and the hand on his wrist tightened its grasp. 

Slowly, sluggishly, his brain reassembled fragments from the last twelve hours—

_Eddie swinging by to collect Christopher from his apartment: “See, I knew you two would have fun. You stay inland? Good. Chris, c’mon bud, it’s time to go home.” And he’d watched them leave with that tiny flame still kindled in his chest: “Buck, there’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you…”_

_Heating up leftovers, picking at them, not much appetite. Dozing off on the couch with_ Planet Earth _playing in the background. One of the ocean episodes—inoculation against the tsunami. It plunged him into murky dreams of sharks and sea turtles, of searching madly for Christopher amongst the nooks and crannies of a coral reef…_

_His phone ringing, Eddie’s name on the screen. 11:11pm. “Eds? Is everything okay? Is Christopher—” And Eddie saying, “He had a nightmare, and he wants to see you. He says he needs to make sure you’re okay.” Then Christopher’s terrified, tear-streaked face filled the screen, but it wasn’t good enough, Chris wouldn’t stop crying, no matter what he said._

_Stumbling to his car, bleary with exhaustion and running on fumes, driving to Eddie’s house—_

—Eddie. He was in Eddie’s bed, with Eddie and Christopher. He’d spent the night.

Chris had insisted—yes, Buck remembered now—on the three of them together in his dad’s bed. If he could sleep between them, Chris explained, then the bad dreams wouldn’t come.

Buck didn’t remember changing into Eddie’s sleep clothes. He didn’t remember climbing into bed with Eddie, didn’t remember if it was weird or awkward. He did recall, dimly, whispering comforting nonsense into Chris’s ear as they fell asleep. Promises that Buck would protect him from evil and water and bad dreams and Scrooge McDuck. And after the seventh or so round of promises, Chris had believed him and finally nodded off.

He’d slept, too. Dreamlessly.

Buck was a master of self-deception; he could deny and compartmentalize with the best of them. He knew every trick in the cognitive dissonance handbook—hell, he’d practically authored it, the new revised standard edition for the twenty-first century man. But waking up now in Eddie’s bed, he understood, in his heart of hearts, that this was not… _regular_. Spending the night with Eddie and Christopher was intimate beyond anything he’d ever known. Intimate beyond friendship, intimate beyond sex. It shook him; he felt deeply, profoundly humbled by it. The fragility of Christopher’s little body tucked under his arm. The strength of Eddie’s grip on his wrist. But then the back of his neck prickled with shame, because he knew he didn’t deserve this. He’d lost Christopher in the tsunami, he’d _lost_ him—

“Hey.” Eddie’s face was mostly hidden in the pillow, but Buck could make out one eye, cracked against the early morning light. “You’re here.”

Buck nodded.

Eddie let go of his wrist, fingers trailing over his arm as he reached up to stroke Christopher’s hair. “Helluva night. Don’t even know where to start with the thank-yous.”

“Save ’em.” His voice was rough with sleep. “The nightmares are my fault, helping out is the least I can—”

“Oh, so you control the tides now?” Eddie shifted a little, unearthing more of his face from the pillow. Even so early in the morning, he could use his eyebrows to devastating effect. “Didn’t realize you were god, Buck. I guess that makes the tsunami all your fault, huh?”

“I…” Eddie’s expression, when Buck told him that he’d lost his son—it had been seared onto his retinas. He saw it every time he looked at Eddie, desolation and unspeakable anguish. It would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He couldn’t look at Eddie.

“You know what I did yesterday, while I was at work?”

Buck shook his head minutely.

“I called the school to update Chris’s paperwork. You’re his emergency contact now. So if they can’t reach me, they call you. Then I rang up his pediatrician and did the same thing with his medical file.” Eddie smiled. “Hope you’re cool with that. I haven’t told Chris, because if he knows you’re his emergency contact, he’s just gonna start faking all kinds of shit so you have to pick him up from school, and—”

“Eddie, have you lost your mind?” Buck hissed. He felt like he’d been tossed back into the tsunami, enormous waves buffeting him this way and that as he flailed and kicked, unable to remember which way was up. Careful not to disturb Christopher, still asleep between him, he reached out and jabbed Eddie in the chest with his forefinger. “Did you get a concussion at work? Did a beam fall on your head? Why the hell would you—”

“You didn’t believe me, when I told you there’s nobody I trust with him more than you. So I decided to make it official.” Eddie yawned—the bastard actually yawned—and covered Buck’s hand with his own. “Welcome to the family, Buckley.”

He could feel Eddie’s heart beating steadily under his palm.

None of this made a lick of sense. Maybe _he_ was the one who’d gotten concussed. 

“It’s Sunday, shit.” Eddie scrubbed at his face. “Promised Abuela that Chris and I would go to mass with her.”

Buck seized the opening. “I should probably head out.”

“Or you could come with us.”

“To… to church?” he stammered.

“Yeah. And lunch after. It’s Christopher’s name-day, that’s why we’re going. It means a lot to Abuela.”

“What’s a name-day?”

“Feast of St. Christopher, you know? Catholic tradition. There’s a saint for every day of the year, practically.” Eddie yawned again and cracked his neck. “Come with us, won’t you? You’ll make Chris happy and get a free lunch out of it. Kind of a win-win.”

Utterly dumbfounded by this turn of events, Buck heard himself agreeing.

“Great. Now let’s grab another hour of sleep before the alarm goes off.”

Buck evaluated the optics of staying in Eddie’s bed. Nightmares and exhaustion had obscured normal boundaries last night; in the clear light of dawn, it seemed like a decidedly unorthodox arrangement, even if he _was_ Christopher’s emergency contact now. “D’you want me to move to the couch, or—?”

“Chris is hanging onto you pretty tight there, man. You’ll only wake him up if you move, and then nobody’s going back to sleep.”

Buck stayed.

He didn’t fall back asleep. There was too much to process.

_You’re his emergency contact now._

_You didn’t believe me, when I told you there’s nobody I trust with him more than you._

_I decided to make it official._

_Welcome to the family._

It was the greatest responsibility anyone had ever bestowed on him.

When Eddie’s alarm went off an hour later, Buck participated in their morning routine for the first time. Sure, he’d crashed on Eddie’s couch before, but he’d never really stuck around in the a.m. Today was different. Christopher woke with a sunny smile, nightmares long forgotten, pleased but unfazed by their sleeping arrangement. Then they went through Chris’s physical therapy together. Chris did his stretches without complaint; Buck, groaning a little, followed suit. His body still ached from the beating the water had given him, and his leg was stiff. He’d been too depressed after the embolism to bother resuming PT, but Chris’s good example shamed him, so he joined him on the floor for his own routine. Eddie did his push-ups and his crunches, offering periodic encouragement: “that’s it, work those quads, c’mon, mijito, four more” and “nice one, Buck, I think you’re more flexible than you were before the accident.”

It should have felt condescending. But it didn’t. Eddie had helped him through months of PT after the accident, alternately barking at him like a drill sergeant and chiding him for pushing too hard. It had all been for naught, of course, when his own fucking _blood_ betrayed him. But exercise had always lifted his spirits, and it still did. He completed his regimen feeling loose and limber, and he and Chris high-fived when they were done.

The three of them jostled for space in front of the bathroom mirror. Buck tried a dollop of Eddie’s hair product and found it emphatically disagreed with his own texture, so he resigned himself to leaving his hair wavy on top. He also felt woefully underdressed, so he borrowed one of Eddie’s shirts, which was a little tight across the shoulders, even left unbuttoned over a crisp white tee. He’d never really gone to church; he wasn’t even sure what his family’s given denomination was. Maybe like Presbyterian? Or Episcopalian?

Eddie was trying to convince Christopher to wear the pants his abuela had got for him, but it was hot, so Christopher wanted to wear shorts. Buck smiled at the fond exasperation in Eddie’s voice when he surrendered: “Lo que quieras, mjio. Just hurry up now, vístete.” It was always right before he saw his family that Eddie remembered he was supposed to be teaching Chris more Spanish.

After a quick breakfast, they hit the road. Buck tuned the radio to KDAY and took out his phone to do some recon so he’d have a better sense of what to expect. Since Eddie had said they were going to Abuela’s for lunch after, he assumed the Feast of St. Christopher wasn’t, like, a literal feast. Maybe it was a symbolic feast, like the bread and the wine, which was a symbol for the host—hadn’t a bunch of monks gotten in a big fight over that back in the Middle Ages or something?

Eddie had told him about the St. Christopher medal he wore a long time ago, but Buck didn’t actually know who the guy was or what he’d been sanctified for. He started googling around a little, and what he found surprised him.

“Eddie,” he stage-whispered, checking the rearview to make sure Chris was still immersed in his _DuckTales_ comic. “Hey, Eddie?”

“What?” Eddie looked stupidly good behind the wheel, his large, competent hands resting at ten and two. His overtime dispute with Chris over pants versus shorts meant he hadn’t had time to shave, so there was still a dark shadow of stubble across his jaw. Buck thought it suited him, not that Eddie had ever asked his opinion on the subject. 

“Eds, it says here that St. Christopher got booted from the universal church calendar in the 60s, and like, he’s not a real saint anymore? And maybe he never actually existed?”

“What now?”

“Yeah dude, they totally busted him. He’s not ‘historical’ anymore, just ‘legendary.’” 

“Well damn, don’t tell that to my abuela. She still prays to St. Christopher every day.”

Eddie didn’t seem overly perturbed by the revelation, but Buck felt kind of cheated. Even though he didn’t know his ass from his elbow, liturgically speaking, he’d liked the idea of St. Christopher as a protective talisman who’d kept Eddie safe in Afghanistan and continued to watch over Eddie and his son to this day. Who was the Catholic church to wake up one morning and decide that Chris’s saint wasn’t a real saint anymore?

Bull. Shit.

Eddie turned into a parking lot next to a little white church. The sign said “Nuestra Señora de los Dolores Perpetuos.”

“Our Lady of Perpetual… Pains?” Buck translated haltingly. 

“Close. Perpetual Sorrows.”

“Sounds cheery.”

“I might’ve neglected to mention,” Eddie said, “that the whole thing’s in Spanish. But you’ll be fine, just follow along the best you can.”

Buck could see Eddie’s abuela and his Tía Pepa waiting on the church steps. He tried not to feel nervous, like he was invading their home turf or something. They liked him well enough, he supposed. Abuela gave him the sweetest hugs and she liked to feel up his biceps and exclaim “¡Qué fuerte!” Pepa was sharp-tongued and droll; she generally treated him like he’d been dropped on his head at birth. 

He let himself out and went to collect Christopher from the back. Chris insisted on bringing his backpack along. “I’ve got comics and coloring books in there,” he whispered conspiratorially, as Buck lifted him down and handed him his crutches. “You can borrow one if you get bored. Mass is pretty boring.”

“Thanks, buddy.” He ruffled Chris’s hair. “I might have to take you up on that.”

“ _And_ the snacks are too small. Jesus tried to share with too many people, that’s why the wafers are small and taste bad.”

Buck nodded seriously. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Are my guys ready to be on their best behavior?” Eddie asked, coming around the truck to join them.

“We’re always on our best behavior, Dad,” Chris replied blithely.

“I know you are, mijito. You’ll have to help me keep an eye on Buck here.”

They let Chris take the lead as they made their way towards the church. Eddie knocked their shoulders together. “Relax, man. You got nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, nothing but your aunt and the flames of hell.”

“Pepa’s all bark. Besides, god definitely prefers the non-believers like you to the hypocrites like me.”

“Why are you a hypocrite?”

“Ever heard the expression ‘you won’t find any atheists in a foxhole’?” Eddie looked at him sideways. “I don’t believe in anything till the going gets tough, and then I’m bargaining with everyone from St. Christopher to Santa Claus, praying they’ll get me home to my family.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Actually, it sounds like common sense to me, covering all your—”

“EVAN!”

The force of the embrace knocked him back into Eddie. Abuela squeezed his midsection with more energy than he ever could have imagined emanating from such a small woman.

“Dios, te damos gracias por Evan Buckley, te agredezco, Dios, por la vida de nuestro Christopher—”

Then Pepa was there too, clutching his hand. “We will never be able to repay you for what you have done, Evan, you rescued Christopher from the water, you kept him safe—”

“—bendiciones, en el nombe de Jesucristo—” Abuela made the sign of the cross over him, and Buck knew he was blushing, he could feel his ears burning “—te pedimos, bendícelo—”

“Basta, Abuelita, Tía, por favor,” Eddie broke in. “Lo están avergonzando.”

“Cállate, Edmundo, no seas tonto. You’re not embarrassed, are you Evan?” Pepa demanded.

“Er,” Buck said, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. Eddie’s family had no business thanking him when Chris had nearly died on his watch. He’d failed to keep him safe; he’d lost him for hours and hours—

“Sin ti, Christopher se habría muerto,” Abuela said tearfully.

Buck could feel the mortification rising in his chest: he had to say _some_ thing, he had to explain to them what had really happened, he had to put a stop to these unearned thanks and prayers and benedictions. He’d _fucked up_ , and for some reason Eddie was blind to that, Eddie had gone off the deep end and lost his fucking mind instead, giving Buck this second chance and weaving him tighter into the fabric of his family—

There was a tug at his shirt, and a small hand slipped into his. Buck crouched down, leaving Eddie to carry on the conversation over his head. 

“It’s okay, Bucky,” Chris told him. “Bisabuela cries and says prayers and Tía Abuela yells, but they’re just really happy that you saved me. You should be happy, too. You did good, kid.”

Buck laughed in spite of himself. “You think so?”

“Sure do.”

When Buck straightened up, Eddie squeezed his shoulder apologetically. “Es verdad,” he was saying to Pepa, “y le estoy tan agradecido a Buck por salvar la vida de mi hijo. Pero no creo que Buck quiera que hagan una escena—”

“Una _escena_?” Pepa said indignantly, but then, to Buck’s immense relief, it was time to go inside the church and sit down. 

*

Hours later Buck was sprawled on his sofa, still stuffed from Abuela’s chilaquiles—she’d sent him home with a tupperware of enchiladas, too—when his phone started buzzing on the table.

His fingers tingled as he reached for it. 

If he was honest, he prayed to see Eddie’s name on the screen every time his cell phone rang.

It _was_ Eddie. Buck accepted his facetime request.

“Hey, man.” He fumbled around the sofa, hunting for his t-shirt, which he’d cast off earlier. But then he noticed that Eddie was shirtless, too, and it was fucking hot—the weather, not Eddie—so he abandoned the search.

“Hey.” Eddie was in bed. The bed they’d shared last night. He’d propped himself up on a couple pillows, reclining with one arm casually folded behind his head, but even so, Buck felt compelled to ask:

“Is everything okay? Is Christopher—”

“He’s great. Fell asleep in five minutes. I think we did a good job tuckering him out today.” 

“I’m glad.”

“Listen, man, I just wanted to say thank you again. I know it was kind of intense, with my family and everything, and dragging you to mass—”

“No, it was…” _Fun_ was the wrong word. Mass had gone completely over his head; he’d sat there like a dolt, catching maybe one word in ten, just trying to copy whatever Eddie did. At least Eddie’d stayed behind with him, when Abuela and Pepa took Chris up for communion, so he wouldn’t be left in the pew all by himself. And Chris had managed to sneak an extra wafer back to him—or a “snack,” as he called it—and Buck had spent the remainder of the service watching Chris color in a Komodo dragon in one of his art books. Lunch at Abuela’s was much more relaxed than he’d anticipated, and after an abridged retelling of their tsunami “adventure,” the conversation shifted to lighter topics. Abuela told Buck to call her Abuela, too, no more of that “Mrs. Diaz” nonsense, and Buck had flushed pink with pleasure, surprised at how easy it was to say “thanks again for the food, Abuela” on their way out. Then he and Eddie had taken Chris to the park, and—yeah. It was as good a day as Buck could remember having in a long while.   
  
“…it was pretty special, actually.”

“Yeah?” Eddie smiled.

“Uh-huh.” Even though Eddie only occupied the small rectangle of his phone screen, Buck could almost imagine he was in bed with him right now. “I like spending time with your family, Eds. I barely knew my grandparents, so it’s pretty cool to have an abuela now.”

“Yeah, she’s real sweet on you. I mean, she always liked you, but now she prays for you every night, too.”

“She—she does?” Buck knew that Bobby prayed for him on occasion—Bobby would tell him so, wryly, after he said or did something particularly stupid. “ _Bobby, I’m getting another surgery so my leg heals faster.” “Well, I’m praying for you, kid.”_ Like Bobby had to appeal to the almighty for extra reserves of patience and forbearance when it came to Buck. But Eddie’s abuela praying for him? That felt sort of like a celestial hug.

“So she says, but for you or _to_ you? I’m starting to wonder. Abuelita’s got her eggs in both baskets now, St. Christopher and St. Evan.”

“Well, if they tried to make me a saint, I wouldn’t last nearly as long as St. Christopher did. That guy had a pretty good run, all things considered.”

“Hell of a long con, yeah. I’m told wars are great for business.”

They eased back into their old banter. Buck took Eddie with him, as he puttered around the apartment and got ready for bed. Eddie told him about the summer reading Chris had to do for school while he brushed his teeth; Buck spat out foam and protested vehemently against the idea of homework for third graders. They were still talking as Buck climbed into bed, rolling onto his side and propping his phone on the opposite pillow. If it was to recreate the sense of them lying in bed together, well—. Eddie didn’t need to know that.

Eddie…He was so _accessible_ like this, hair soft and rumpled, eyes warm and heavy-lidded, crinkling up at the corners as he laughed or smiled at whatever outrageous thing Buck had just said. Sometimes he would adjust his phone and more of his chest would come into the frame, an expanse of bare skin that Buck tried not to fixate on, even as he made sure his own bicep was flexed to its most advantageous angle as he rested his cheek on his hand.

“Eds,” he said through a yawn, “Eds, I was thinking I might, uh. Try the light-duty thing. ’Cause during the tsunami, I never quit, y’know? Quitting wasn’t even an option. And surviving something like that—well, you know what they say about what doesn’t kill you. Maybe the blood clots aren’t as big a setback as I thought. Maybe I don’t have to give up on my job.”

“I’m proud of you, man.”

“…you are?”

“You’re damn right I am. It fuckin’ killed me, you moping around with the long face.” Eddie smirked at him, but then his expression turned serious. “I want you to remember, though, that you weren’t wearing the uniform when you saved my son and all those people in the water. That was Buck, and Buck exists without Firefighter Buckley, d’you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“You’re trying to manage my expectations.”

“No, I’m saying the job doesn’t define you as much as you think it does.”

Buck disagreed, but he was too sleepy to argue. “You have to promise not to laugh when I’m out there in a fire marshal uniform.”

“Dressed up like a Mormon, you mean?”

“Ugh.”

“Go to sleep, Buck.”

“Bossy.”

“Uh-huh. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Kay.”

“Night.”

“Night, Eds.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Especially now that I'm playing hopscotch all over the seasons. 
> 
> A quick word about the Anon thing, since I've been getting some questions about it: I know it's lame and makes for difficult tracking, and I'm sorry! I totally hide behind it to dodge accountability because I hate letting folks down when my life gets hectic and busy. It's the best way I've found to keep this writing fun and low-stakes for myself. Thank you for bearing with me! I've said it before and I'll say it again: you're just the nicest group of people here. <3


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